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Mar 6, 2020 · “The Way Back” is about a ragtag basketball team at a Catholic high school, and a damaged alcoholic coach (Ben Affleck) who finds a way to force them into being winners, into being better people, even.
- Miracle
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- The Bad News Bears
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- Miracle
List. NEW. Jack Cunningham was a high school basketball superstar who suddenly walked away from the game for unknown reasons. Years later, he's now stuck in a meaningless job and struggling with ...
- (219)
- Gavin O'connor
- R
- Ben Affleck
Tons of swearing in mature Affleck alcoholism drama. Read Common Sense Media's The Way Back (2020) review, age rating, and parents guide.
- Gavin O'connor
- Tara Mcnamara
- Warner Bros.
Mar 4, 2020 · The raw and redemptive tale of a broken soul who starts piecing himself back together when he’s hired to coach his old high school basketball team, “The Way Back” only sounds like a movie ...
- Ben Affleck convinces as a man fighting his demons while coaching a high school basketball team.
- Verdict
By Witney Seibold
Updated: May 21, 2020 11:50 pm
Posted: Mar 4, 2020 2:00 pm
With The Way Back, director Gavin O'Connor (Warrior, Miracle) has prepared a very familiar and very comforting, audience-pleasing stew. Sports movies have long been, throughout the broad history of the genre, reliable comfort food that can reasonably be applauded for cleaving to traditional, predictable story beats; daring originality is welcome in sports movies, of course, but falling back on cliché is not necessarily a vice for them. So while O'Conner, a slightly more thoughtful director than your average filmmaker, has perhaps added a few generous tablespoons of welcome soulful melancholy to The Way Back – effectively producing a satisfying meal – its baseline flavors are what make the film ultimately a genial and emotional entertainment. The rest of the review shall be, I assure you, free from further food metaphors.
In The Way Back, Ben Affleck – operating in full-on sad-sack mode, perhaps his best note as an actor – plays a bitter alcoholic construction worker named Jack whose life is clearly on the downward slope; in the first five minutes of the film, we see him sneaking beers at work, slipping gin into his coffee mug for the drive home, and taking a few depressive chugs from a can he keeps next to his shampoo in the shower. The Way Back, then is going to be less a film about winning championships and Big Games, and more about the delicate process of recovery from addiction.
Jack is also a former basketball star from his high school days, and those who meet him mention that fact frequently, often compounding how badly he's burned out. Into his grey milieu, Jack is offered a coaching position at his old high school where he is invited to take the school's flagging basketball team from – and we can all probably recite this part in unison – being the losing-est team in the state to being a hard-working band of teammates who have all begun to realize their talent and potential.
The Way Back is a gratifying sports movie that is made better than the average by some sadness, some realism, and Ben Affleck's performance. The Way Back might serve as an excellent double feature with Gavin O'Connor's Warrior, another sports movie that spices up (o.k., one last food metaphor) a perhaps-known sports narrative with excellent perform...
- Witney Seibold
Mar 6, 2020 · The Way Back Reviews - Metacritic. Summary Jack Cunningham (Ben Affleck) once had a life filled with promise. In high school, he was a basketball phenom with a full university scholarship, when suddenly, for reasons unknown, he walked away from the game, forfeiting his future.
The Way Back is an inspirational sports drama that follows the genre’s stereotypes and formulaic storytelling, but it’s still very successful in its execution. Ben Affleck is reason enough to...
